The Fallen
by tinuelena
Summary: She sits in his chair. Then changes his world.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Random one-shot. I felt I had to write something about Tom Riddle; he fascinates me. I'll continue this if enough people show interest.

xx

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Light rain washed the shingles of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in a thin gloss. In the offing, lightning illuminated the green sky, sending rabbits into their holes for shelter, ushering the drunken vagrants back into dimly lit pubs with long fingers of electricity.

Tom Riddle couldn't be bothered by the light; he'd learned to harness and control it when he was fourteen. The only thing keeping him awake was the endless dripping from a crack in the stone ceiling.

"Goddamnit," he mumbled to himself, punching his pillow. "You'd think they'd fucking repair this place."

Angrily, he threw the covers off his body and strutted, shirtless, out to the common room. He surveyed his kingdom with an air of dissatisfaction, noting the guttering fire and the leak in the west window.

And then he saw her.

A cascade of dark red curls fell over the back of _his _wingback chair. One slender arm was draped lazily over the intricately carved wood; a gold earring twinkled in the dying firelight.

Pointedly, he marched over and settled into the chair across from her. "Who are you," he demanded, "and what are you doing?"

She stared him down with sharp green eyes. "You're the one who invaded," she said smoothly. "It's my right to ask you first."

He arched an eyebrow. "You don't know who I am?"

"We've been in classes together for the last seven years. Of course I know who you are." She paused. "But how silly of me to think you'd emerge from your Potions book for five seconds to notice your classmates."

_Is she honestly giving me cheek?_ Tom tapped his ring against the hard pine of his armrest. "You know I make the rules here. Answer my fucking question."

She considered this. "I'm Aurelia Hart. And I'm sitting in a chair."

"In _my_ chair."

Demurely, she crossed her legs. "Unless your name is engraved on this wood in gold, this is no one's chair."

"You're pushing your luck."

"You don't scare me."

Thunder echoed off the vaulted ceilings; the rain was coming in sheets now. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Try me."

"I will."

"In the middle of the common room?"

"I told you—I make the rules here."

And just like that, her long nightgown was off, a cloud of black satin at her feet.

xx

Kicked back against the headboard of Tom's bed, Aurelia blew a ring of smoke into the thick air. "You weren't here this morning."

"I had business."

"Who?"

Tom pinched the cigarette from her fingers and took a long drag. "Wyatt Hughes."

"Camilla's father."

"Yes."

"What's he done to offend?"

"Got re-married last weekend." He handed it back to Aurelia. "He chose a Muggle."

Aurelia said nothing. She hadn't yet told him she was a half-blood.

Thoughtfully, he turned to her. "You ought to come with me next time."

She paused, mid-drag. "You mean—"

"The world needs to be rid of them all," he said lazily. "We're the only ones that deserve to learn the arts of magic. Purebloods. The chosen few."

"Have you chosen your next victim already?"

With an air of indifference, he waved a hand in the air. "Who knows. Thaddeus Wright, maybe."

"The Auror?"

"The Mudblood." A seedy grin twisted his handsome face.

Aurelia put out the cigarette and turned back to her lover. "You're going to invade the Ministry during our next Hogsmeade weekend, or what?"

"Not just me. Pollux Black… Caspar Crouch… Charles Rosier…"

"Your Death Eaters. So it is true."

He looked quite self-satisfied. "Rumors have been spreading, have they?"

"Like wildfire."

"Let me make you my own," he purred.

There was no rejecting an offer of Tom Riddle's, so Aurelia didn't protest when he took her arm. Not a single cry of pain escaped her lips as he touched his wand to her wrist, watching in depraved pleasure as the Dark Mark snaked its way into her skin.

"It's beautiful," he whispered, running a hand up her thigh. She felt him, hard, pressing into her, and held her breath. The flickering candlelight caught the onyx stone he wore on his first finger.

"What's your ring?"

"A part of my soul is inside."

She gave a smirk. "Isn't that sweet."

Wisely, he refrained from telling her that it was every inch the truth.

xx

Her toes sifted the dying embers as Tom went through the list again. The pain kept her awake.

"Rhett and Louisa Thomas and their children."

"Their daughters are at Beauxbatons," Charles said. "But it will be easy enough to catch the two of them at the Hog's Head."

"Ursula Graham."

Caspar ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Mine," he growled hungrily. "And I'm going to teach the tart a lesson before I kill her."

Everyone but Tom and Aurelia chuckled heartily. All business, he went on with the list.

"Violet Wright."

All heads turned toward Aurelia.

"I'm assisting her this term," she admitted, "but certainly you don't think—"

"A Mudblood is teaching Hogwarts students," Tom said sternly. "You're alone with her daily. You can make sure the half-breed never lays a finger on a wand again." From his robes, he produced a small vial of red liquid.

"Pale Horse Potion," Charles grasped. "So you have mastered it."

A dangerous threat gleamed in Tom's eyes as he regarded Aurelia. "That and more," he growled.

Aurelia took the vial.

xx

"I've fallen in love with you," she whispered, eyes lowered in shame. The blood of Professor Wright still stained her fingers, and she shuddered. "Enough to give up everything."

He stared back at her.

"They know it was me," she went on. "I have to leave here."

For a wild moment, he considered taking the fall. She had her whole life ahead of her; graduating from Hogwarts meant nothing to him.

"Go, then," he said in a grating voice. "You've spent your usefulness."

She stepped closer to him, achingly close. The temptation to kill her washed over him; she had the peculiar power to make him weak, and he hated her for it.

"You don't mean it," came her velvet whisper, "and I know it."

On impulse, he pulled a rusted old mouth organ from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

"What's this?"

"Keep it with you always, and keep it safe. As long as you have it, part of me will be with you. Forever."

Time seemed to stop for a moment, and she could see through his well-fortified defenses, like she was peering through the morning fog. Then, just like that, they were solid again. "Now go."

Holding the treasure to her breast, she kissed him, then slipped out of the room.

xx

"Name?"

Gratefully, Aurelia sank into the wheelchair, and looked up at the nurse. "Tyra Stark."

"Let's get you up to the birthing ward, Mrs. Stark."

Aurelia didn't bother correcting her.

Twelve hours later, a baby girl lay in her arms, wrapped in blankets. She had Tom's dark hair; Aurelia couldn't help but smile.

"What's her name?" the Healer asked gently, pen poised to fill out the card.

"Vesper Violet Stark."

"Father?"

Aurelia played with the mouth organ. "She has no father."

As the Healer left the room, Vesper's little fingers found the harmonica and curled around the cold metal. Like in the womb, she heard a heartbeat inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Aurelia shivered, her back cold against the icy stone bricks of her cell in Azkaban. Through the heavy mist, she could make out the faint shape of the Dementors; she couldn't conjure a full Patronus without her wand, but sometimes she could manage a faint shield with her palm and a tremendously happy memory.

Usually she thought of her daughter. Vesper would be thirteen by now, and in her third year at Hogwarts, God willing. Of course, most of the memories were from when she was tiny; Aurelia hadn't seen her daughter since she was exactly eight years old. The Aurors had found them on Vesper's eighth birthday, Aurelia's last few Knuts spent on a cupcake for her daughter's special day, huddled together in the dying firelight of a dilapidated old shack on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. She'd never been so heartbroken in her life. She could still visualize it perfectly—Vesper screaming, crying, clutching her shabby old rag doll in one hand and the cupcake in the other; it landed frosting-side down, the best part, the part she'd been saving for last. Aurelia wished she could have given her a real cake, balloons, a shower of presents; instead, she could only afford one cupcake, and the Aurors took even that away.

But there were happy memories, too: the sticky-fingered dandelion bouquets, bedtime stories about the magical Hogwarts castle, midnight snacks of cornbread and pumpkin juice. And the one playing in her memory to keep the Dementors at bay: the Christmas that she gave Vesper a goldfish in a bowl, and the look of awe on the little girl's face as she fed it and watched it swim around.

A glowing horse galloped down the corridor, and Aurelia's thoughts were interrupted; a tall woman with a pinched face marched after the Patronus, followed by a man with a familiar face.

Immediately, Aurelia got to her feet, unable to believe her eyes as the woman pulled a ring of keys from her belt and unlocked the iron door. "You're done," she said brusquely. "Your brother's here to pick you up."

Tom emerged from the shadows. "It's good to see you, sister."

xx

They sat together in silence at the Black Cat Pub, Tom with a glass of firewhisky, Aurelia nursing a cup of jasmine tea.

"How did you get me out?"

"I've always been able to charm the people I needed."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Never mind that."

A pause. "We have a daughter."

"What?"

"I said, we have a daughter. I named her Vesper."

"Where is she?"

"I've been in Azkaban five years, Tom. I don't have a clue."

His face clouded. "They never told you who's taking care of her?"

"They probably didn't want a murderess raising a child after a stint in Azkaban." Her tone was frosty. "Her middle name is Violet," she added, after a pause.

"Whose last name does she have?"

She sipped at her tea. "Neither of ours. I had to go into hiding when I left Hogwarts. I took a new last name."

With a sigh, Tom tipped his glass back and drained the last of the liquor inside. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Come on."

xx

Aurelia laid back, enjoying the luxury of a real pillow. "It's been too long."

"Hopefully I didn't put another baby in your stomach." He took a drag off his cigarette.

She paused. "I've been thinking. I think I'm going to go back and find Vesper."

He turned on her. "Are you out of your mind? I risk going to fucking Azkaban Prison to break you out, and you're going to throw your second chance at life away by going after her?"

"There's nothing left for me but her. And you never told me why the hell you broke me out in the first place. I thought I'd spent my usefulness."

Silence ensued; Tom stared into the darkness while Aurelia played with the fringe of the duvet, sure she'd gone too far this time. "Do you still have that mouth organ?"

She bent over and pulled it out of her robe pocket, handed it to him.

"A piece of my soul really is in here," he said quietly, holding up his ring. It glinted in the flickering candlelight.

"Tom, what—"

"I'm making myself immortal," he confessed. "Horcruxes. Dark magic. When I kill someone, it splits my soul, and then I can put the pieces into objects." He gave the mouth organ back to her. "Like this."

She was repulsed. "Tom Riddle, how can you—"

"My name is Voldemort now," he interrupted. "Aurelia, you can do it too. Seven murders; seven objects. Then you can put the pieces of your soul away and we can live together… forever."

"Tom—"

He lifted her arm. "You're still mine, you know." And he licked the Dark Mark, still bright black on her skin.

xx

"I saw her today, Tom."

He froze.

"She's beautiful. She remembers me. They gave her to my aunt Maria—I get to take her back."

"I am not," Tom said flatly, "going to adopt our little bastard child and stop doing what I'm doing, you know."

Aurelia's voice fell to a whisper. "I know."

"Leave her with your aunt. She's known her as a mother for the past five years. Come with me."

"I'm not murdering anymore half-bloods, I don't care how immortal it makes me."

"They don't deserve to live!" he cried, his eyes blazing. "They're polluting the rest of us."

Aurelia fixed her gaze on him. "Your mother," she began, "was named Merope Gaunt."

He stopped short. Obviously, he had not expected this.

"She had a lover whose name was Tom Riddle."

"You're treading on thin ice, Aurelia."

"A Muggle lover."

He drew his wand and raised it against her; but she knew the power she held over him, knew that he would never do it.

"You, Tom Riddle, are a half-blood yourself."

And then he had her by the throat against the wall, swearing, cursing, the intent to kill flashing in his veins—

"So am I."

He released her. "What?"

"My parents are both Muggles. I'm a Mudblood, Tom. Your favorite."

"No, you said you were a pureblood, you _told_ me…"

"I never said anything. You just assumed."

"You fucking whore, I swear to God I'll kill you, I swear—"

"Try it."

He held his wand to her throat.

"You couldn't do it before," she said, "and you can't do it now. But I know your secret." And she walked out the door.

xx

A humid July breeze played with the daisy-printed curtains in Aurelia's bedroom. She now shared a tiny cottage in Ottery St. Catchpole with Vesper, who was fast asleep in her own tiny bedroom upstairs. She didn't hear the footsteps edge past her door.

Tom Riddle pushed open the door to Aurelia's bedroom. She was lost to dreams, a book open on her chest, finger still marking the page. The mouth organ sat on her nightstand; he'd get to that as soon as he finished his real business.

He felt a strange satisfaction as he pulled his wand from his robes and aimed it at the mother of his child. It would be over now; after this, there would be no one who held sway over him. He had given up love, attachment, everything.

Just as he opened his lips, Aurelia opened her eyes.

_"Avada Kedavra."_

She didn't flinch; in fact, she kept breathing, steady as she had been in her sleep.

"I knew you'd come." She picked up the mouth organ and tapped her wand to the scuffed metal surface. A glowing orb made its way out of the thing and floated around both Tom and Aurelia before choosing to settle into Aurelia's chest.

"Making a Horcrux was a good idea," she said with a smug grin. "Thanks."

He narrowed his eyes against her. "I hope you made two." Again, he raised his wand.

"What did you feel the second before you thought you killed me?"

"Satisfaction," he growled.

"I'd put my money on a sliver of regret," she purred. "Get out of my house, Tom."

"I'd be glad to. _Avada Kedavra!_"

This time, she fell to the bed, still.

"Goodbye." He made his way out to the hall, where he found a stricken Vesper.

"So you're my daughter," he said, his voice grating. "Give my regards to your dead mother." With that, he left.

Immediately, Vesper sprinted into her mother's room, shaking her lifeless form. "Mom!" she sobbed. "No…"

Aurelia's eyes opened. "Is he gone?"

Shocked, she nodded.

"Wipe your tears, baby," Aurelia told her, sitting up. "We've got to move fast."


End file.
